We’ve been busy visiting friends and family, but we’re getting back to work now. We keep falling behind as new things pop up, but we will finish it. We are finally going to start shipping the rewards soon. Soon some of you will get shirts, posters, and the mini posters which will look like this:They’re about 8.5 X 5.5 inches and will be signed by us. Anyone whose getting a shirt will also get one of these.

The game itself is coming along nicely, a lot of things have been reworked, most of the remaining game elements have now been implemented, so now we mostly have to concentrate on the actual levels and artwork. Maybe we’ll make another video showing some of the new stuff sometime soon.

Making Bump move 100% the way I would like him to is impossible. But by the time In The Dark is finished, I hope that he will move how I want him to at least 99.9% of the time. In The Dark only relies heavily on physics because it has to, if I were making a traditional platformer or something I would write my own collision system. I’m stupid for relying on the physics any more than I absolutely necessary,  but over time I’ve removed almost all of the physics properties from bump, and really just rely on it for collision and as a means to consistently propel him around.

So why are physics engines so bad for handling characters in games, or really anything in games other than crates and barrels? (sure see a lot of those in games nowadays, huh?) The problem stems from classic games, you can lay most of the blame with Mario. In classic games (this applies to 3D as well as 2D) there wasn’t really any processing power to handle realistic momentum, collision, or even acceleration so games cheated. At the same time, speed and scales were exaggerated to make the games more fun and skill based. Everyone started copying the early games that did this, and now it’s so ingrained in most gamers that when a game attempts a realistic simulation it “feels wrong.”

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Recently we added this wobbling animation for when Bump is in a precarious position:

The only problem is our existing footing detection for Bump wasn’t really capable of the kind of precision to make the animation play at the right times. Traditional platformers have very simple systems for making these decisions, most use grids and have no support for rotation. Obviously when using a physics engine and having dynamically generated platforms like In The Dark’s lights, things get more complicated.  Bump’s footing detection has gone through five different major versions since we started.

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I rewrote a lot of the lamp code recently to add some new features. Most obviously, In The Dark now has colored lights! These probably won’t have any effect on the game play (at least, they don’t right now) but it means we can include much more variety in light sources. Less obvious is improved scripting for lamps, it was needed for things that show up in later levels like stoplights:

Also we will be at Intervention in DC this weekend. We are mainly going because of Kerry’s comics but we’ll all be there, so stop by and say hi and maybe we’ll have a demo you can play.

Finally, we’d like to thank everyone thats supported us so far, we’ve raised over $2200! Thank you so much!

A couple of weeks ago we ran a contest on Deviant Art for people to come up with their own monsters for In The Dark and we got some great entries!

It was tough to narrow it down to our three favorites but here they are:

Pinappleapple’s entry was animated! We liked that
it actually has some potential for creating more
intricate puzzles and its overall ridiculousness.

And the entry that will be in the final game is APPUL’s!

Zazz96’s entry Cappie has a great awkwardness to him and
manages to be threatening and cute at the same time.

It’s simple, silly, and immediately gave us some fun ideas to play with.
We liked its kind of terrible teeth, and its suction cup like feet.

So it’s going to be in the game! All three will receive copies of In The Dark when it comes out. We’d like to thank everyone who participated and you can check out the list of entries over here.

Our Kick Starter did not reach its goal on time. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still going to finish In The Dark!

To help out you can now sponsor us through paypal here or click the donate button. We are offering all the same rewards as on the Kick Starter page until October 1, here’s what you can get:

$15 or more: A copy of In The Dark when it comes out!

$20 or more: Special Edition of In The Dark when it comes out with extra stuff and your name in the credits!

$30 or more: Special Edition, credit, plus a signed piece of artwork from us!

$50 or more: Special Edition, credit, plus a Tshirt or poster signed by us! (please specify when donating including shirt size)

$70 or more: Special Edition, credit, plus the shirt and the poster! (specify shirt size please)

$100 or more: SE, credit, shirt, poster, and you’ll be an official beta tester!

$250 or more: SE, credit, shirt, poster, and an original piece of artwork, tell us what you would like us to make you!

$350 or more: SE, credit, shirt, poster, and a hand made Bump plushie!

$500 or more: SE, credit, shirt, poster, and we will put something in the game for you! (e.g. your house, a monster, a lamp, etc.)

$1000 or more: Everything and more! you get all the stuff above, and we’ll give you other unique things, you decide!

Thanks again for all your support! We couldn’t do this without you guys. If you have any questions or comments let us know, and we’ll get in touch with you if we need you to clarify anything in the rewards.  Heres what the shirt and poster look like:

Check out our new video!

This shows more clips of actual puzzles than our previous videos; more puzzles, monsters, and ridiculous things to come!

We have a Kickstarter page now! Check it out!



Any contribution helps, for $20 you will get a copy of In The Dark when it comes out! Give more and you can get other cool stuff. Please take a look.

If we can meet our funding goal, In The Dark could be finished in a matter of months. We need money to get some hardware for testing on, and if we can cover basic expenses for a few months we can work on the game full time.

Its been about a month since the last update. We’ve been a little busy and I’ve forgotten to post anything. What have we been up to?

A lot of work has been going into getting the map editor to the point that anyone can use it. It does a much better job at properly saving and loading things, and pretty much everything can be created in it in a more WYSIWYG style.

Also a lot of random technical things, such as physics bugs and memory leaks have been patched.

We’re starting to concentrate more on designing puzzles and boss monsters, it looks like we’ll probably end up with 3 to 5 bosses total, still lots to be done. We’ve got some stuff coming up later this week, so expect another post soon.

Originally I planned on uploading a video today, but we’re having some compatibility issues with new hardware / software.
Instead, lets talk about what we’ve been doing the past two weeks.

Most of the work has been on consistency at different frame rates and fixing physics related glitches / exploits. Animation has been improved slightly, Bump now moves more smoothly and can duck to avoid certain enemies and obstacles. We’ve also improved light switches significantly, which is good because they will become one of the main elements of many of the puzzles in the final game.

I’m going to try to make little status updates like these a regular thing, so long as I have something to post.